Little Annie Edison
by xxHarleQuinnxx
Summary: Little Annie Edison might just be the girl for Troy and Abed. Alternatively she might also be deeply out of character and an emotional train wreck. Abed gives her the top bunk anyway.
1. When Annie Punched Jeff

Little Annie Edison was nursing a broken hand and a broken heart when Shirley found her in the closet. Literally, not metaphorically. As in literally in the closet.

One look into those watery big-blues and Shirley's mothering instincts went into overdrive. She had Annie coaxed out of that closet down the hall to the health-bay before you could say "Jesus loves you and your violent tendencies".

There was a moment when Jeff Winger was coming out and Annie Edison was going in and Shirley was mouthing silently at Pierce who was guiding Jeff and shouting "What? What? I can't hear you! Speak up woman!" that it looked like it might get ugly, but Annie only imagined hurting him a little bit and Jeff avoided eye contact and both were proud of their mature handling of the situation.

Which was how Annie came to be sitting in the health-bay on the first day of semester while a third-year first-aid major asked her—

"—does this hurt?" as he poked at her knuckles.

"Yes!" Annie snatched her hand back.

Shirley had been checking her watch and pacing for the full three minutes Annie had been up on the table. "Annie sweetie, do you think this will take long? It's just my boys—"

Annie snarled, first at Shirley then at the incompetent first-aider as he approached her with a thermometer. Shirley squeaked and backed out of the door as the poor young man pushed his glasses up his nose and looked pale. She turned around and nearly ran into Abed who was heading down the corridor to anthropology.

Shirley grabbed Abed by the collar and growled, "You get in there, and you get that poor girl to a hospital, or so help me it will be the last thing you don't do today."

Abed pointed at door. "In there being the health-bay, and that poor girl being Annie?" Shirley nodded. "Cool. Cool cool cool."

"Alright then." Shirley nodded briskly and left him standing in the corridor.

Abed opened the door to the health-bay. "I'm here to take Annie Edison to the hospital."

The third-year student pointed to a curtained off area, clearly terrified, and scuttled into the storeroom.

Abed walked over to the curtain. "I'm here to take you to the hospital, or it will be the last thing I don't do today. Which doesn't make sense. If it was the last thing I didn't do, then I'd get everything else I did today done. I could watch all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back. The director's cuts. Did you know that's almost impossible? Most people fall—"

"I didn't know you had a car." Annie's voice was small.

"I don't." Abed was confused, but he figured Annie would get to the point soon. She was usually pretty logical. Not as logical as him, but more logical than most of their study group.

"Then how are we going to get to the hospital?" Annie sniffed.

Abed had to think about that one. But only for a second. "Troy can drive us. I know where Jeff keeps his spare keys."

Behind the curtain Annie gave a small smile, and tucked her hair behind her ear with her good hand. She hopped off the table and came around the curtain, her right hand clutched to her chest. "That would be nice."

* * *

><p>Troy met them in the parking lot.<p>

"You do know we've got anthropology now?"

"You get to drive Jeff's car." Abed threw him the keys.

"I'm in."


	2. Wheelchair Races and a Code Yellow

After three hours in the emergency waiting room, seven trips to the vending machine, one hastily covered-up wheelchair race and a code yellow Troy, Abed and Annie were back in the car and headed for Greendale.

"So, ah, what are you guys doing tonight?" Annie asked from the backseat.

"Mega Movietastic Movie Marathon!" Troy and Abed said in unison, and went in for a handshake until the car swerved and Troy remembered to hold the wheel.

"Oh."

"How about you?"

"Oh, nothing much. I thought I'd stay at home. Alone. By myself. With a broken arm."

"Technically it's only your hand that's broken—" Abed was cut off by a fierce eyeball conversation with Troy. They weighed up the pros and cons, shared a joke, agreed that Annie probably only ate Margarita but at least she wouldn't ask for pineapple, and three seconds later Troy said:

"Why don't you hang out with me and Abed?"

"Really? I wouldn't want to intrude on your Mega Marathon…" Annie said coyly, smiling to herself.

"Mega Movietastic Movie Marathon" Abed corrected, and this time they waited until Troy had finished parking to do their Super Special (not so) Secret Handshake.

* * *

><p>The theme of the night was 'Pixar'. Starburns had been, delivered pizza, and gone hours ago. Nemo had been found, The Incredibles had saved the day, WALL-E had fallen in love and none of it had caused more than a sniffle amongst the three friends curled up on the couch in Abed's dorm room.<p>

But six minutes into the opening sequence of Up! Troy had whimpered and Annie had held his hand. Seven minutes in a large tear had rolled down Annie's cheek and Abed had taken her hand and held it too. Nine minutes in and they were both a sobbing mess on the couch. Abed handed around the tissues and he and Troy held hands across the back of the couch behind Annie's head and somehow it sort of turned into a big group hug. And that's how they stayed. Even in the funny bits.

Troy and Abed were probably more touchy-feely than most guys (in a totally non-gay way. Holding hands isn't gay, right? It's just what friends do), but Annie didn't really touch anyone. In fact, Abed could count the number of times he'd seen her touch someone on one hand. She'd high-fived Pierce once, patted Britta on the back once, kissed Jeff once, punched Jeff once, and knocked Vaughn's hand away once. She'd dated Vaughn for over a month, but he'd always been the once to touch her and she'd pretended she was ok with it but she wasn't.

Abed knew that pointing out social abnormalities in people's behaviour often made them uncomfortable, and Troy was always telling him to "just go with it", but even when Abed thought about it for the rest of the movie he couldn't work out why Annie was curled up on the couch with them, or even why she had wanted to come in the first place.

So when the credits rolled he asked her, still facing the screen, and still holding her hand.

"Annie, you don't normally want to watch movies. And you don't normally hang out with Troy and me. And you don't normally hug people. Why are you here?"

If anyone else had asked it would have been awkward, and she would have been offended, but it was Abed and Annie always thought that it must be really hard not understanding people and Abed never set out to hurt anyone deliberately. It just didn't compute for him.

"I guess I was just lonely and feeling bad about Jeff and everyone else was judging me for it. You and Troy always look like you're having so much fun – I guess I just wanted in." Annie squeezed Abed's hand and snuggled further into him and Troy, who was snoring softly and twitching every so often. "Besides…" she yawned, and closed her eyes, "…I don't feel like you're doing this to get something else from me. It's nice."

Abed thought about that for a while. The blue DVD logo bounced around the screen and the light of the television illuminated his two sleeping friends. He decided it was nice that Annie had explained it to him, and that they would regret sleeping squashed up on the couch tomorrow. He nodded to himself, and said "Cool. Cool cool cool" quietly, and then roused Annie and Troy enough to get them into bed. He even gave Annie the top bunk, which was his favourite.


End file.
